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Making UX Choices Based on What You Hate About the Internet

thegood.com

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Re: Making UX Choices Based on What You Hate About the Internet

#11

Post by jonmacdonald »

defenestration wrote: post #6

A brilliant contradiction I must say. Starting the article with: 'I made it the easiest thing you could possibly buy, you don’t have to join anything. All the things I hate about going on the Internet and trying to watch stuff – I stripped all of that away.'. And ending with: 'The Stuck Score™ benchmarks your site in seven key problem areas so that you can immediately improve your website performance. How much revenu…

I see your point, but like Louis CK, if you see the value in the content provided, we think you'd be willing to give more information: in Louis CK's case subscribing to an email when making a purchase, in our case getting a Stuck Score™ that can provide even more value.

Re: Making UX Choices Based on What You Hate About the Internet

#12

Post by jonmacdonald »

fighting wrote: post #10
jbob2000 wrote: post #3

Ultimately, everyone wants to make user experiences like this. But along the way, some short-sighted MBA or marketer gets involved, who's job success is measured by email subscription numbers or another metric, and the whole thing gets messed up.

But how can you show how proactive you have been in your quarterly performance review without testing out various user funnel strategies, optimizing conversion rates and paying consultants for A/B tests?

You mention tactics. Instead, focus on metrics trends. Optimizing the customer experience may include the tactics you've mentioned, but if you walk into a review and show that your customers are happier (net promoter score, or clips from user testing, for example), conversion rates are up, and online revenues are up... that would be pretty darn good evidence of a job well done.

Re: Making UX Choices Based on What You Hate About the Internet

#13

Post by potatolicious »

jjn2009 wrote: post #8

Without using something like an A/B test it would be impossible to determine what kind of effect this has on conversion rate. I don't doubt removing friction helps get users to make a purchase but "Hey I just did these few things and this time we had tickets sell really fast!" is not a correct approach to optimizing conversion rate, there could have been any number of factors which were not accounted for here as to w…

I used to be a firm believer in A/B tests, but nowadays I feel that our over-reliance on it has created this awful internet dystopia.

Don't get me wrong - A/B tests are valuable, but I've worked at many companies that have relied on them to a fault.

For one thing, there are very important metrics that are hard to measure, and many are impossible to measure in relation to a specific website change. User happiness for example is a nearly impossible metric to measure, and correlating it to specific website experiments is pretty much right out.

Many factors also have time-delayed effects, which is nearly impossible to correlate back to source causes, and IMO why we see so many companies achieve short-term conversion gains at enormous expense to brand perception and customer satisfaction.

In many ways companies that over-focus on A/B testing miss the forest for the trees - it doesn't necessarily create the best possible product, it often instead ends up creating the least shitty version of a bad product.

Re: Making UX Choices Based on What You Hate About the Internet

#15

Post by roywiggins »

richard_mcp wrote: post #9

The article makes it seem like fans bought his ticket because it was easy. I wonder how many tickets he sold due to his site decisions and how many he sold due to his popularity.

The number of people willing to wade through the terrible experience of ordering tickets online to see their favorite artists does suggest that the first rule is, be popular.

Re: Making UX Choices Based on What You Hate About the Internet

#16

Post by jonmacdonald »

gradi3nt wrote: post #14

So CKs brilliant talent for comedy had not so much to do with his ticket sales, eh? That sounds like a sales pitch. Oh wait, scroll to the bottom, this is a sales pitch. Classic tactic of making the incredible sound easy, just pay a small fee!

No doubt he is a brilliant talent, and even if you have the world's best online customer experience, it won't help you sell a shitty product.

And... the Stuck Score™ is free, if that helps?

Re: Making UX Choices Based on What You Hate About the Internet

#17

Post by jonmacdonald »

roywiggins wrote: post #15
richard_mcp wrote: post #9

The article makes it seem like fans bought his ticket because it was easy. I wonder how many tickets he sold due to his site decisions and how many he sold due to his popularity.

The number of people willing to wade through the terrible experience of ordering tickets online to see their favorite artists does suggest that the first rule is, be popular.

But the bigger point here is... why make it a terrible experience if you don't need to? Or purpose at The Good is to remove all the bad experiences from the web until only the good remain. That's why I shared this inspirational example.

Re: Making UX Choices Based on What You Hate About the Internet

#18

Post by fighting »

jonmacdonald wrote: post #12
fighting wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But how can you show how proactive you have been in your quarterly performance review without testing out various user funnel strategies, optimizing conversion rates and paying consultants for A/B tests?

You mention tactics. Instead, focus on metrics trends. Optimizing the customer experience may include the tactics you've mentioned, but if you walk into a review and show that your customers are happier (net promoter score, or clips from user testing, for example), conversion rates are up, and online revenues are up... that would be pretty darn good evidence of a job well done.

In reality, the reviewer is thinking, so what have you done for me lately?

Re: Making UX Choices Based on What You Hate About the Internet

#19

Post by jonmacdonald »

potatolicious wrote: post #13
jjn2009 wrote: post #8

Without using something like an A/B test it would be impossible to determine what kind of effect this has on conversion rate. I don't doubt removing friction helps get users to make a purchase but "Hey I just did these few things and this time we had tickets sell really fast!" is not a correct approach to optimizing conversion rate, there could have been any number of factors which were not accounted for here as to w…

I used to be a firm believer in A/B tests, but nowadays I feel that our over-reliance on it has created this awful internet dystopia. Don't get me wrong - A/B tests are valuable, but I've worked at many companies that have relied on them to a fault. For one thing, there are very important metrics that are hard to measure, and many are impossible to measure in relation to a specific website change. User happiness for…

Here here!

Re: Making UX Choices Based on What You Hate About the Internet

#20

Post by defenestration »

jonmacdonald wrote: post #11
defenestration wrote: post #6

A brilliant contradiction I must say. Starting the article with: 'I made it the easiest thing you could possibly buy, you don’t have to join anything. All the things I hate about going on the Internet and trying to watch stuff – I stripped all of that away.'. And ending with: 'The Stuck Score™ benchmarks your site in seven key problem areas so that you can immediately improve your website performance. How much revenu…

I see your point, but like Louis CK, if you see the value in the content provided, we think you'd be willing to give more information: in Louis CK's case subscribing to an email when making a purchase, in our case getting a Stuck Score™ that can provide even more value.

Fair enough and thumbs up for actively replying. In my view you could improve my customer experience by reducing the feeling of getting into a sales funnel.
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